Friday, November 25, 2005

Milluim...every bone in my body aches.

I haven't posted in 2 days. Two days of intensive milluim (IDF reserve duty) has left me exhausted. Every bone in my body hurts, every muscle feels over-stretched. Walking up the stairs is a major effort. My legs hurt from every ligament. One big mess of throbbing pain.

I have to admit, putting on my uniform on Wednesday morning before shul gave me a very weird feeling. Its the first time I've put it on since the "Disengagement", and while I used to be proud putting it on, I just felt very strange this time. Not proud...but I also didn't have any of the "revulsion" which some try to make a big issue out of, saying that religious Jews have "Disengaged" from the army.

I can't go into much detail about what we did, but part of the exercise was 8 hours of tactical paintball, where you shoot at terrorists (or vice-versa) at a distances of 2 meters, instead of the regulation 7 meter minimum distance in civilian paintball. Everyone has black and blue blisters all over them. I "killed" lots of terrorists, and was killed just as many times.

Yet, at a bar mitzva tonight I was able to dance with more energy than I've had in a long time.

The problem with aliyah when you are older is that you don't get any miluim breaks.Did you get any point blank shots at people's heads?A girl recently told me she was going to sherut leumi next year. She said she had considered the army until she saw what they did to those poor gazans.

Galilee Rocker: You can always volunteer (if you have 3 months). I was shot in the head twice, when my paintball rifle didn't shoot, even though it was making sounds like it was. You need to shake the rifle when that happens to help the paintballs go down into the rifle.

Without a doubt, the IDF's involvement in Sharon's Gaza expulsion will have repercussions for years to come.